Accept it

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

ACCEPT IT

John 6:52-60

52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

53 Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever."  59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"

NIV

This is I indeed hard teaching for those who do not understand Jesus was speaking about spiritual matters, or metaphorically about his flesh and blood. We, however with the discernment of the Spirit understand the spiritual truth Jesus is saying. Why do some believe and others disbelieve? It is not that God determines which does and does not believe. His desire is that none should perish and all should believe. Yet when Jesus tells the crowd that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood it makes it sound like he means just that. But it is about remaining in him. We are going to see that some of the disciples are going to leave in the next portion of this exchange. What this tells us is at the time of his teaching here in the synagogue, there were more than just the twelve. So we find that there were disciples or followers of Jesus who left him because his teaching was too hard and they could not accept it. We will consider that when we get there, so for now let us think about his words about remaining in him and feeding on him. This is certainly the spiritual truth, to feed, to obtain the sustenance to live from the words of Jesus. Because we believe every word of the Holy Scripture, we remain in him. What does that mean, to believe every word? Because we are confident that all scripture is God-breathed, we know without a shadow of a doubt, that every word has been inspired by God. Yes, each writer of words, used his own personality or style to express that which God inspired him to pen. But they are not the authors of those words, just the scribes, so to speak, the vessel who God inspired to pen his words, his thoughts, and his truth. Some have put values or priorities in certain scriptures, such as the primary scripture are the words quoted of Jesus, those in red letters. Then second is the rest of scripture, authored by various men. We cannot agree with that assessment, as we are convinced all scripture is breathed from the mouth of God. He is the author and perfecter of our faith. He is the Alpha and the Omega. All things exist because of him. Jesus does make sure we know that we must remain in him, and he in us in order to have eternal life. We must take him into our being, his truth, his sacrifice for us, his giving of his flesh and blood for us. This is the truth of the matter. He gave up his flesh, he died, and he spilled his blood, and it was for the remission of our sin, for without accepting his flesh and blood there is no forgiveness of sin, no remission, we are dead men walking. What is so hard about accepting this truth? Is it back to wanting to look to the law for salvation, looking to works as a better way? We just cannot do enough good works to make it to heaven, or to even please God. We have already seen that the only work God requires is to believe in Jesus. We cannot do much more to please him, so why do we think we have to check off our lists of do’s and don’ts? Our list should only contain two items. Do believe in Jesus, don’t disbelieve, or do trust in him, don’t trust in ourselves. Anything else is returning to the law, believing the law, or good works will gain us anything. However, we should grow in our faith and that whole of scripture is there for correcting us, rebuking us, teaching us and training us in righteousness so we will be fully equipped to do whatever God directs, or path he sets before us. What is hard about that? Nothing and we accept it.